


The Thing You Remember

by chinashopbull



Category: Tintin - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Feels, Dogs, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Guilt, Nightmares, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Queerplatonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:33:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26359513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chinashopbull/pseuds/chinashopbull
Summary: Haddock doesn’t know what else to say. That night in Venezuela he’d kept sayingIt’s over now, it’s over,because that’swhat you sayto someone at the tail-end of a sticky nightmare, and, well, clearly time’s made a liar of Haddock by now, and spoiled his attempt to console. He won’t let that happen again if he can help it.Tintin's got trauma and so does his dog.
Relationships: Archibald Haddock & Tintin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	The Thing You Remember

**Author's Note:**

> Written in January.
> 
> I go back and forth between seeing Tintin and Haddock as queerplatonic and as lovers; you can read this one either way.
> 
> See end notes for specific content warnings.

Haddock finds Tintin above deck, asleep between lifeboats with his back propped on the rail and head lolled across left shoulder. The tips of his unlikely hair are bent sideways against the hull of the second lifeboat. He’ll look full windblown when he wakes. The posture exposes the length of his neck from ear to mid-shoulder in a smooth, full line.

No, not smooth. Pebbled with gooseflesh at the chilly bite of the oncoming dawn. He shouldn’t be exposing himself so generously when he knows they’re sailing north.

His knees are kicked up, and Snowy gazes up at Haddock from his resting place beneath the crook of those knees. 

Poor mutt. He’s got that… that _doggy_ look, eyes too big and full of equal parts sadness and resignation. 

There’s a word that covers the full description, and Haddock _knows_ the word — unless he’s making it up — and he thinks he knows it starts with a “D” or maybe a "B" because Tintin read it to him recently (Tintin reads to him often these days, just because). But he can’t be arsed to remember it right now, and it’s frustrating, but mainly just in the sense that _everything_ is kinda frustrating.

If not for the dog’s lack of urgency and Tintin’s arms folded snug and neat against his chest and the chill, Haddock might think the boy’d been knocked senseless again and tossed here — he looks that _forgotten._

He’ll eat his hat and pick his teeth with the brim if that isn’t the most frustrating thing of all.

…Unless, no, unless the most frustrating thing is that Snowy is still sleeping well below Tintin’s belt, rather than up by his chin or shoulder or at least on his lap, as was already Snowy’s long habit well before Haddock was ever first treated to the sight of Tintin Asleep. Since at least then, whenever Tintin would lie down, the poor pup would refuse to settle until he’d satisfied himself he couldn’t manage to get much closer to his master’s heart.

Lately? Not so much. The nightmares have grown worse.

They’ve always seemed to come and go, tide-like, but they’ve never come like this before. Not that Haddock’s seen anyway.

Rather, not that he’s seen before among any man who’d never served in wartime, prison, or both. 

(Tintin’s seen war if not participated directly, and often been a prisoner. Was a prisoner when they _met._ The boy’s disinclined to mention it, and Haddock would be well and truly damned if he didn’t grant Tintin the dignity of his own past. So Haddock will likely die still wondering about his boy’s childhood home and his boy’s nighttime torments — the latter more frustrating by far, but what’s a man to do about it besides miss drinking.)

The nightmare tide has been rising this time since late last summer, as has Tintin’s inclination to move about while having them. Tossing and turning and miserable whimpers and occasional shouts, that was about expected, but maybe two months ago now Tintin’s restlessness started to become more erratic. Then, unnervingly, more violent. 

They’ve yet to talk about the night in Venezuela when Tintin’s “I said _stop!”_ was loud enough to rouse Haddock from his own sleep straight to a combat-ready panic — and when Tintin’s flailing became a vicious strike that poor Snowy took straight to the hip. A larger man would’ve snapped a bone or two in the wee mutt, with a blow like that.

The dog refused to come when Tintin tried calling him over to apologize. That... didn’t help.

Haddock looked Snowy over on his behalf — nothing broken, though he’d limp for six days (severely for two). And then Haddock held Tintin with both arms while he sobbed, and Haddock wept with him, while rocking the boy slightly in spite of himself, as a man should never be ashamed of tears. Not his own, and absolutely not another’s.

Though it might be more true to say Tintin _allowed_ himself to be held while he sobbed that night. He certainly hasn’t allowed it since.

The nitwit.

Haddock’ll eat his coat and choke on the buttons if _that_ isn’t the most frustrating thing of all.

Nothing the stubborn wee force of nature can do right now, though, to stop Haddock shrugging off said coat and arranging it over him. Snowy reangles his snout to avoid touching the draping wool but otherwise doesn’t move, including when Haddock ruffles his wiry brow with a knuckle. 

Snowy hasn’t been sleeping so well, either. Haddock isn’t sure when that started, if it was before Venezuela or after. It’d make only too much sense if it were after — but there’s no way to be sure. Tintin conspicuously doesn’t talk about Snowy’s… sometimes dodgy behavior since that night, and so Haddock wouldn’t bring it up even with a hundred blades to his throat and a thousand guns to his head.

So. What’s a man to do? (Besides miss drinking.)

“Thundering typhoons, Tintin,” Haddock sighs, then sighs again when Tintin doesn’t stir at the sound of his own name the way he usually does. 

Haddock doesn’t know what else to say. That night in Venezuela he’d kept saying _It’s over now, it’s over,_ because that’s _what you say_ to someone at the tail-end of a sticky nightmare, and, well, clearly time’s made a liar of Haddock by now, and spoiled his attempt to console. He won’t let that happen again if he can help it.

“Thundering typhoons,” he says again, and, dismissing the old devil on his shoulder suggesting in a whisper he return below for a nightcap, crosses round to the other side of the ship to light his pipe instead. He’d like to watch the sun rise. If it gives him an excuse to linger on deck should Tintin need to be held again or anything else — and a means of protecting Tintin’s pride, in face of the fact that Haddock feels the lad needs this sort of looking-after (a matter still hotly contested) — so much the better.

Tintin wakes under the scraping claws of a somewhat gentler dream than is the norm lately. Its primary subconscious sensation is one of binding ropes, which, even during the fright of actual captivity, was never a sensation Tintin found altogether unpleasant.

His heart is beating far too violently, though, and that _is_ altogether unpleasant. The morning sun’s on his face and startlingly bright. The rough wool collar of the Captain’s coat feels as though it’s crisp-roasting the skin of his neck, though that bit isn’t so startling. 

Tintin’s taken increasingly to sleeping outdoors, or without cover, or even without clothing given the circumstances. Warmth only seems to fuel the nightmares, like hot wind to a wildfire. 

And he often wakes, in a sweat, to find himself covered in one way or another anyhow. 

The doting gesture betrays far too sweet a concern over his welfare for Tintin to have the heart to inform the Captain of its counterproductivity. And he’s far too familiar with Haddock’s irrepressible instinct to be of assistance (as well as with the many ways that can go poorly) to do anything that might encourage the Captain to abandon his current course of action and blindly seek another. The poor man’s already near his wits’ end regarding the issue of Tintin’s dreams, for which of course no one can really _do_ anything.

But mostly, it’s just incredibly sweet, and Tintin, privately, finds that incredibly toothsome.

He finds the Captain with his hat tilted over his eyes just on the other side of the lifeboat, leaned against the rail in a discomfiting mirror image of how Tintin slept last night.

Tintin rubs the grit from his own eyes, and drapes the Captain’s coat over the Captain before stumbling toward the galley in search of tea or perhaps coffee. He feels he’ll need extra strength today. His muscles aren’t often this fatigued after a night’s rest. 

“I wonder if I’m not coming down with something, Snowy,” he mutters as he descends the stairs and finds he can’t quite manage it without a hand on the rail. “Oof. I think I ought to eat some fruit. A body could do with a few extra vitamins. How about you, boy? Salt pork today?” He turns, and the dog isn’t there. “Snowy?”

Not much would deter Snowy from breakfast. Maybe he met a ship rat and finally proved himself a terrier? Stranger things have happened, surely.

No, the dog’s waiting anxiously at the top of the stairs when Tintin finishes in the galley, and dodges Tintin’s hand when he reaches for a scratch.

“Oh, I — see,” says Tintin, straightening slowly. He gazes at Snowy a while, while Snowy doesn’t seem sure where to look. “I suppose you still have your bad days as well.” He doesn’t ask why, and places a dish of dried meat and half a yam on the deck, beside a coiled rope.

Snowy dances anxiously between forepaws and doesn’t come forward to eat until Tintin’s well clear of the dish.

Tintin tries not to linger, or stare. No sense making it worse. 

He stands by the snoring Captain with elbows on the rail and looks as far away as he can while the morning breeze rips the warmth from his coffee. 

The horizon itself is tantalizing, at sea. He can strain and stretch his eyesight to its fullest extent and still not come close to the end of anything. On a morning this clear he imagines his eyes can detect a hint of the Earth’s curvature, imagines that with a large enough canvas he could trace its full round outline from right here — though of course, from here aboard the best he could manage would only be a 360° tracing of the horizon, and the sea’s already done that for him.

He’s thinking foolish thoughts today.

Snowy finishes with his breakfast and approaches, presses a cold nose to the back of Tintin’s ankle. A good sign, though again he dodges Tintin’s hand, and instead puts his paws up on the Captain’s shoulder. Tintin sucks down a breath. No need to feel queasy at that, silly Tintin. 

Silly dog. He’ll have his scratches one way if not another.

The Captain is giving him an absent pat before he even wakes. “‘Nother bad ‘un, Snowy?” he mumbles. “Where’s our boy, eh?” He must catch the scent of the coffee then, or sense Tintin’s presence some other nameless way — and he does, in fact, often seem to have a way of knowing Tintin’s there, asleep or awake. It’s always been a bizarre reassurance, for Tintin, and one of the first reasons he lists for himself when recounting reasons he trusts the man so implicitly.

...though, the less well-dressed truth of the matter is the trust precedes not only the sixth sense but everything else there is between them, including knowing each other’s names, and in a rare instance in Tintin’s life, he wouldn’t dare try to explain why.

These thoughts are why Tintin’s got an easy smile to greet the Captain with when he turns to look up at Tintin before righting his hat. “Mornin’,” says the Captain.

“Morning, Captain.” He glances at the dog for the barest second, despite not wanting to; the Captain’s eyes track his, and neither comments, though Tintin can see Haddock’s faint distress. “I’d ask if you slept well,” says Tintin, “but since you’re up here, it feels a little redundant. And — ah, sorry, sort of a rude topic to greet you with first thing.”

The Captain looks at Snowy, now seated comfortably by his thigh with his back to both of them. The Captain stops rubbing the dog’s shoulder blades and gives Tintin a manufactured smile. “Never you mind, lad,” he says. “I’ve found it’s often good for the constitution to skip a night every now and again. A man can’t spend his whole life sleeping.”

“I’ve just done up some coffee, if that’ll brace you. It’s rough but it ought to still be warm. It’s just down in the galley.”

Haddock reaches a hand toward Tintin’s cup, makes a “gimme” gesture. Tintin obliges with disproportionate fondness and a touch of bemusement, and the Captain swirls the coffee and tastes it as thoughtfully as it were a delicate wine. His second sip is more of a gulp, and he passes it back. “That’s a fine cup. Not quite strong enough for my taste, but you know me, I like to stand a spoon in it. Just that there taste’ll do me fine, lad, thanks.”

That “taste” drained it to less than half, but the remains are enough for Tintin. He was never going to finish the whole thing, probably, just sip until it went cold and dump the rest overboard. Too much of it gets his heartrate nervous. This way doesn’t waste, and nobody has to drink it cold, not even the sea.

“I’m glad you’re here, Captain,” he blurts. 

“Wha, so I can provide your brew with the expert critique of my refined palate? Anytime, I live to be of service...”

Tintin rests a firm hand on the Captain’s shoulder. “I’m _always_ glad you’re here,” he says. “Sometimes I think I ought to say such things more freely.”

The Captain blinks before answering. “Always glad to be here,” he says. “I hope you don’t think this is a revelation, Tintin.”

“Of course not.”

“I love it when you get soppy, m’boy.” 

Tintin feels a little quirk of a smile. “I hope you don’t think _that’s_ a revelation, Captain,” he says, gently.

The nightmares subside — still there, only a bit quieter — until early summer. 

Again, adventure and the pull of the story drag Tintin partway across the world. It’s supposed to be simpler this time, and the Captain is fighting a bad cough when the time comes, so Tintin goes only with Snowy, like in the old days. 

It isn’t simpler this time. It’s worse. There are questions in his mind now that stretch too far to hold any shape, so he can’t ask them, much less investigate properly. These questions have more a scent than a shape, like parts of the human body which should never be on the outside for you to find out what they smell like.

Again, he barely escapes adventure with his life. This is not, in and of itself, exactly thrilling any longer. The burn will most assuredly scar. The new bend in Snowy’s tail doesn’t look as though it’ll straighten itself out with time.

After escaping, he phones the Captain long distance, despite the outrageous cost. “I’m... I’m _tired,_ Captain,” he says.

“Come home, then,” says the Captain.

He considers the call worth the expense, somehow.

The nightmares emerge from their hiding-place. Tintin blames the heat.

He arrives Wednesday evening. A hailstorm ravages Marlinspike Hall on Thursday afternoon. 

It manifests out of nowhere, hardly an hour after Thomson and Thompson wrap up their thanks for Tintin’s help unmasking an art forger (great snakes, is _that_ what it all amounted to?) and depart, apparently taking the mild sunny weather with them when they go. 

Tintin’s ears started popping midway through that tedious conversation — _No, don’t be cruel or dismissive; they always mean well, and can be useful at times besides. It’s not their fault, either, that you’re exhausted beyond reason._

It feels good to linger in the fresh air after the inspectors have gone. Tintin feels he’s at a deficit for freshness. But as the sky turns abruptly indigo, then eerie green, he realizes his stomach is dropping as quickly as the barometric pressure. 

There’s hardly time to whisk everyone and all the trappings of their welcome-home picnic lunch back indoors before the sky turns inside-out, and no time at all to batten down the hatches and whatnot. 

The hail’s nearly the size of Tintin’s fist. It crashes for several devastating minutes, claiming four southside windows upstairs and the car’s windscreen, while the wind itself manages to knock Tintin’s favorite tree into the drive. 

Professor Calculus is on holiday so it’s just the two of them and Nestor left to rush about performing damage control, and Tintin was already tired before any of this began, still far from recovered from the latest, um... adventure. He’d been privately planning for a nap as soon as lunch was over.

Lightning follows the hail, along with torrents of rain the likes of which Tintin hasn’t seen since he was in India during the monsoons — only worse, because the wind is feral and sends it spraying in through every broken window, all the way to the furthest wall, all the way into the hallway. 

By the time the storm’s temper wears out or moves on, they’ve got four whole rooms as soaked as if at sea, strewn with leaves, crumbled glass, and the remains of one very unlucky swift. There’s water running, seeping, and dripping from strange places elsewhere all throughout the house, including from the big chandelier in the foyer. They’re all keeping a paranoid eye on the library, but so far so good. 

Tintin props an open umbrella over his typewriter and all the collected notes from the adventure he only just dismounted. For safety.

The power flickered out early on, of course, and under cover of such menacing clouds (and especially deeper in the heart of the house) night seems to fall much too early. They scramble with buckets and mops and towels mainly by headlamp, while Nestor unearths tarpaulins and nails them over the compromised windows, plunging them into further darkness. 

They’ve moved on to using the lesser quality blankets and linens to absorb the damage when the battery in Tintin’s headlamp starts to give out. On his way back from the linen closet with a fresh armload of sheets and rags, the lamp blinks out just a moment too long and he stumbles hard into something soft. A yelp rings out in the dark. 

He catches himself against a wall. “Snowy! Oh! Great snakes, I’m so sorry! Are you okay? Where are you? ...Snowy? _Snowy!”_

The Captain’s large hand comes down just behind Tintin’s shoulder, unmistakable in any circumstance. Tintin straightens and turns toward him in a swift motion, feeling arms close round his back. Feeling, especially, how steady they seem — how long has Tintin been shivering? He thought he was working up a sweat despite the unseasonable chill of the stormy air. 

“He’s alright, lad,” Haddock is murmuring by his ear. “He’s run off toward your room. The cat’s been hiding there, too; they’ll keep each other company. He’s alright. ...You’re alright, too, y’know.” 

Tintin sniffs, hiccups once, and releases a breath more shivery than his hands, something in him relaxing immediately at the reassurance. The shaking subsides a great deal. So it’s _not_ the chill. Alright. When did he work himself into a panic, then? “Great snakes,” he says — _Great_ snakes, _I sound faint._ “I’m actually dizzy.” Perhaps fever? 

“You ought to sit down awhile, then,” says the Captain. “Your battery’s running low.”

Tintin knows he doesn’t (only) mean the headlamp, but he takes what’s offered anyhow. Slides the lamp off his head, and sits. “There’s work to be done.”

“Aye, and there usually is. But the rain’s stopped now, and the damage is done. Things won’t get worse by you taking a blistering blue minute to rest yourself. You’ve already _had_ adventure, remember? Me an’ Nestor’ll be fine for a while.”

“Snowy…”

“I know. I saw. He’s fine, Tintin. Just a bit overwhelmed, looks like.”

“Overwhelmed.” Tintin laughs. The Captain doesn’t.

“He turned and looked when you apologized. I saw him. He knows it was an accident. Dogs are social and clumsy as people, mostly. Never knew of a dog who couldn’t understand your basic goof-up.”

Understanding doesn’t necessarily beget forgiveness. Tintin makes a doubtful face and switches off the fading headlamp, starts opening the battery compartment though he hasn’t got any replacements handy. It’s just something to do that at least mimics productivity.

“He’s a smart lad. Just like his master. He’s only taking some space and rest where he needs it. …Nothing wrong with that at all,” he adds, pointedly.

Tintin remembers what Haddock said at sea this past spring, about not spending your whole life sleeping. The context was entirely different, of course, but the memory insists on appearing now all the same. 

Just as it insists on driving him to shame, and shame demands sleeplessness. No rest for the wicked.

“That wee dog loves you with every hair on his weird little body. You know that.”

A rush of heat floods Tintin’s face. “And that’s _precisely_ why it’s so—“

This is ridiculous. He rises, dropping dead batteries from his lap. The Captain winces as they clack to the floor. Tintin inwardly curses himself for that, too. Which is rather silly, but the reflex has become habit as well.

“There’s no point sitting round chattering about it,” says Tintin, reaching for the pile of rags he dropped when he tripped on Snowy. He gathers them against his chest, stands, and the Captain smoothly lifts them out of his arms and throws them back on the floor.

“You’re running on fumes, Tintin. Go to bed.”

“But Snowy’s run off there, you said.” _And he doesn’t feel safe with me anymore._

“Use mine. I’ll be up all through the night like as not, anyway.”

“If _you’re_ to be up all night then _I—“_

“Will be _going to bed.”_

Tintin closes his mouth, then feels the echoing scrape of his jaw grinding. He may, or may not, be too tired to resist the sleep he clearly does need, but even at his best he’s often too tired to dissuade a Captain who’s made up his Haddock mind. 

All the more since he’s finally crawled out from the bottle, and although it’d be all too _easy_ for Tintin to get his way simply by offering a glass — in regards to that neverending temptation, Tintin would now shoot himself _quite literally_ in the foot before proverbially shooting the Captain in his.

Nothing to be done for it, then. As per usual of late. He stands. It takes longer than he’d like. He still reserves the right to feel a little bitter at being _sent to bed_ like a child.

He makes his mouth into a very long, very thin line and offers the Captain his decommissioned headlamp. “Very well,” says Tintin, spreading his hands theatrically as he backs away. “You win, Captain.”

“Boy, if you think I believe that so-called smile for one blistering second—“

 _“Captain._ You’re right. Alright? I’m going to bed. I’m no good to anyone in this state.”

“That’s not what I—“

“Good night, Captain.”

_“Tintin.”_

Haddock removes his own headlamp, causing his face to shine in the wild reflections of the puddles on the rug and the spray on the wall. He looks beautiful, in the way of something enormous and ancient. A mountain, or the sea.

Or like none of those things. It’s simply that he’s the Captain and beautiful.

Tintin feels his eyes prickling at the same time he notices the Captain’s going wavery.

It frightens him sometimes, the way all these things can pass between them so quickly yet so fully, as if the same exact thing had been somehow dwelling in both of them at the same time already. But it’s the sort of fright that momentarily cleans out all the other, more gnawing terrors, and so paradoxically brings lightning-hot clarity.

It’s this clarity that makes it feel possible to entrust himself to the laws of the universe.

Nobody inspires it more deeply than the Captain. No one and nothing ever has. The Captain and his softening,wobbly eyes and his large, uncertain hands. And all the things he says or doesn’t say. 

Tintin breathes deeply, to feed his worn heart. The inhale he draws on a stutter, and the Captain finishes that thought with an aching sigh.

“I know, Captain,” Tintin says. Then, much more quietly than before: “Good night.”

Of course the nightmares have another go at kicking him now that he’s a bit down. The visceral reassurance of falling asleep on the Captain’s bed, with his nose buried in the Captain’s pillow, doesn’t provide the same mental protection it’s offered when he’s had occasion to borrow it in the past.

The dreams come for him straight off, with no hesitation whatsoever, disallowing him the true rest of deeper sleep that usually comes first. He sees Snowy bleeding and snake-bitten, snapping his little teeth at Tintin’s reaching hand before being swept overboard in a great crash of dark malicious foam and from there falling three miles from the belly of the plane to the night-dark earth below — Tintin watches his snout open and shut in terrified yaps but the wind is too strong to hear —

— and Tintin’s hands are on the parachute pack, he’s got it _in his hands_ when the ropes round his wrists yank backwards and he loses his grip on _everything —_

— and the Captain’s face resembles a large salted pretzel but he won’t say what happened to him, who burned him, will only grumble profanities and pluck at Tintin’s bonds, but it’s impossible to say whether he’s trying to tighten or loosen them, and when Tintin finally dares ask which, the Captain jolts and stares at him as if slapped, as if abruptly and fully heartbroken and stunned that it’s Tintin’s fault, and shame forces Tintin to his knees, to a groveling ball on the icy deck while the waves skitter around him, while sharp-toothed rats skitter around him and turn the seafoam to ammonia. The Captain takes a cruel hold of Tintin’s raised, bound palms and instead of words he answers Tintin’s forgotten question with a flood of spiders rushing from his nostrils on too many legs and the smell of sour whisky, so that Tintin knows he’s gone back to the bottle and isn’t coming home this time and this too is his fault —

— and he’s fighting blind, the power’s gone out so it’s dark below deck and he _knows_ what kinds of buyers these particular monsters find for their human cargo, so he _cannot_ lose now, everyone he loves is here but he can’t see them and every punch is a sucker punch, then inevitably comes a firm blow to his head and he goes down, aware but unresponsive, feels it completely when his chin smashes defenseless to the ground and clammy hands grip round his naked ankles and drag, and at first he thinks his skin is crawling but then it’s melting right off of his wet red muscles and someone’s vomited in the toilet they chain his wrists to and the clammy hands pull his naked ankles apart but he can’t lift his bashed head even to shout and maybe his brains are truly on the ground this time and he’s just been too foolish to realize —

 _“Ow!_ Billions of blister— _Tintin._ You’re at Marlinspike Hall. You’re safe. Everyone’s safe. Just open your eyes now and you’ll see.”

Oh, great snakes, this again? He must’ve been just on the surface of waking, to hear the Captain’s voice so clearly, and to be awake before he _can_ open his eyes. There’s a lingering sensation of thrash and struggle. He isn’t sure which side of wakefulness it’s coming from.

Becoming aware of the dream seems to settle it. His heart rate and urge to be sick, however, aren’t so easily calmed.

“Tintin? Can you hear me now, lad? You’re alright. It was a nightmare. Nothing’s happening to you or anyone else. No one’s in any danger.” A cool hand brushes his brow, mopping his sweat as it goes, freeing his hair.

Waking up is a gentler process from there, helped along by kind words and kinder touches, until Tintin’s sitting propped against the headboard and the Captain is slumping at the foot. Tintin swears he can hear the hammering in his own chest echo through the wooden bedframe and fill all the pitch-black corners of the room that Haddock’s candle can’t reach.

“I wish this would stop happening,” the Captain mutters into the gloom. His words have the attitude of confession. He’s in his shirt sleeves. There’s sweat on his arms.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Tintin replies between gulps, admittedly petulant and more than a touch bitter, which was not his intention. He throws back the cover that he definitely did not lie under of his own accord.

“I’m not blaming you, my boy. It’s only that.” He swallows. Tintin can see his eyes have gone misty again. “I don’t enjoy watching you go through this any more than you enjoy watching Snowy have one of his skittish days.”

The mention of the dog dashes away whatever feelings of tenderness had begun to show through the strain of the dreams. “Snowy’s as entitled to his nightmares as I am to mine,” Tintin says, rather crossly. “If his are about _me_ then it’s only _right_ I should feel awful.”

“There’s got to be a statute of limitations or someth—“

“I’m _sorry,_ Captain, but it’s really quite simple. If he’s still suffering for it, I should be, too.”

“Ohhh, aye, yes of _course._ Continuing to scream and thrash in your sleep is _just_ the thing to put the pup’s mind at ease.” Haddock leans back and says it to heaven: “Nothing to soothe a frightened friend like harboring night terrors of your own!”

“‘Night terrors’? Don’t exaggerate, Captain. I can’t see how—”

“Can you see me sitting here? Think I’m here on my own account, or because of _Snowy’s_ suffering? You want to believe you’re struggling only because he is, fine, that’s _your_ delusion. But what have _I_ done?”

He fixes Haddock with the dirtiest look.

“It’s no fun from the other side, is it?” Haddock turns himself to face Tintin more directly. “You suppose Snowy’s been dreaming about you. And what are _your_ nightmares about, then? Any familiar faces?”

Tintin begins a sharp reply, but his mind is already succumbing to thunder and fizz; he manages to say “Buhh ffferrhmm?” and to make something like a small squeaking monkey-noise, and that’s it. He’s... The Captain looks far too sure of himself and his question. 

Tintin must be talking in his sleep. It’s the only explanation.

He shakes his head slightly, and wills his blush out of existence. “That’s not — they’re only dreams, Capt—”

“Bilious bullhockey, that,” says Haddock, his tone far gentler than his language. “You can’t have it both ways, lad. Either dreams matter or they don’t. So which is it?”

Tintin blinks at the far wall. Surely it doesn’t — it’s not — they’re just — “You’re being rather unfair, Captain.”

“Am I now? How so?”

Of course he can’t form an answer that both makes sense and saves face, so for a while he says nothing. If the subject of the _dog’s_ nightmares is important enough to be worth considering… 

(He’s not accustomed to finding himself guilty of hypocrisy.) 

“You’ve changed the subject,” Tintin says eventually. None of the heat turning his heart inside-out manages to find its way to his voice.

“I haven’t,” says the Captain. “Snowy’s getting better, but you’re not. I’d like for that to change. The... the second part, I mean. Am I the only one?”

“Of course not.”

“Well then?”

“Then nothing!” Tintin says. “I’m a grown man and hardly your responsibility, am I?”

“I’m _not_ gonna pretend that I don’t _love you!”_

“I don’t recall ever asking it of you!”

Haddock’s sudden grin is broad and disconcerting. “You sure ‘bout that, lad? You _sure_ you don’t remember asking me to collude with you on building you up to be some kinda monster? To agree that you deserve to be _abandoned_ for being vulnerable to bad circumstances? To tell you that Snowy hates you — which he doesn’t — and that it’s shameful to be haunted by terrible things — which it isn’t — and that some things which aren’t really _anybody’s_ fault are somehow _your_ responsibility to put right?”

Tintin turns physically away; the Captain grabs his shoulder and spins him back, leaning forward on his hands. “Are you _positive_ you never gave me _any_ sign that you want my help in blaming _yourself_ for not being able to do things that are _impossible_ for any man to do? Or for just — just _making a blistering blue mistake_ when you _weren’t even properly awake?”_

“Alright! Alright, humanity is fallible — message received loud and clear, Captain.” This time he tries rising to his feet.

“No it jolly well hasn’t been.” Haddock drags him back down. “Because you’re _still_ asking me to ignore _this_ and, well, no. I’m sorry, lad. Not this time.”

“That’s hardly your place to decide!”

“Aye, and normally I’d agree with you, _but._ I’ve kept my mouth shut and both hands off this for nearly a _year_ now—“

“It hasn’t been a—“

“But it’s _not_ getting any better this way. It’s getting _worse._ Tell me I’m wrong; I’ll laugh at you.”

Tintin huffs, but stops trying to escape. 

“If you keep going like this by yourself, Tintin, something’s bound to give. I can’t see what that could be, besides you. And whether you agree with me or not, boy, I need to tell you that I’m _not_ going to lay here like a dried-out jellyfish and just watch that happen without trying to help you, no matter how much you think you deserve this torment, _or_ how little you think you deserve help. Which is _ridiculous,_ by the way. I won’t. I can’t.”

When the pause extends for an uninterrupted moment, the Captain lifts one challenging brow, and Tintin knows he’s being invited to protest. He wants to. He can’t.

“We know when and why Snowy’s dreams started,” says Haddock, carefully. “We can guess what they’re about. And though he still has his bad days and unfortunate reminders — like tonight — he’s been getting better.”

Tintin snorts.

“He _has,_ Tintin. I’ve just come from your room, and he was stretched out _snoring_ when I left to follow the sound of your screaming. And if you don’t believe that? He has more good days than bad now — far more. Doesn’t he?”

Well, he can hardly argue with mathematics. “He still won’t sleep within reach of my hands, though,” says Tintin. 

The Captain absently rubs his jaw for a moment — Tintin recalls him crying out in pain just before his voice made proper contact with Tintin’s ears, and begins to form a questi—

“And so what if he doesn’t?” says Haddock. “It’s barely a meter’s distance from where he was before. You don’t leash him, Tintin, do you. If he wanted to be rid of you, he’d only have to take himself on a walk and not come back. He could take himself halfway across the country before we even thought to look for him, if he wanted. But he stays, and he still follows you all over hell and creation near every waking moment. _Doesn’t_ he? If you look at that and see another mysterious story to uncover — frankly, lad, I don’t know what I could say that you’d actually hear over willful ignorance that loud.”

Tintin rubs his feet together, to distract himself from another uncomfortable blush.

“Alright,” he relents. 

“Alright?”

“Yes. Captain, did I — I’m sorry, if I. If I hurt you just now, when you were trying to wake me up.”

Haddock laughs. It only sounds like his proper laugh on the very thin surface. “Oh, aye, you really walloped me good with your wee tiny baby fists. I’m _fine,_ my boy. Don’t give it another thought.”

“But I—“

“But you _what?_ And don’t you dare say anything other than that you’re going to tell me what it is you’ve been seeing when you shut your eyes.”

Tintin covers his mouth with a fist and stares off into the flickering shadows of the Captain’s bedroom. His eyes begin to water almost immediately; it must show, because he hears the Captain swallow a muted gasp. 

None of this seems wise. Every bit of it is embarrassing the whole way through. But he’s exhausted the current course of action; here in the dark, that’s plain enough to see now.

His eyes run blurry until the Captain, in his pale undershirt, looks simply like a light Tintin feels compelled to lean toward. Then he blinks his eyes clear.

“Can we —“ Tintin scratches his eyebrow and clears his throat to hide the catch in his voice. There’s no way to be sure of how successful he is. He clears his throat again — there seems to be a splinter lodged in it — and lowers both hands to pick at the edge of the rejected bedspread. Without even looking up he can feel the Captain’s eyes track the movement. “Can we have some tea, d’you think?” he asks.

For a long moment, Haddock simply looks at him, his gaze thick with thought, and continues to breathe.

Then he stands up and, leaning across the expanse of sheets, puts a hand each on Tintin’s hand and waist, props Tintin’s arm across his (frankly) equal parts impressive and inviting shoulders, and in this manner lifts Tintin out of bed as though he were badly injured or ill. And, placing the candle in Tintin’s free hand, he takes the brunt of Tintin’s weight through the door and down the hall toward the stairs.

It’s absolutely unnecessary, as the problem’s entirely and explicitly in his head, but — the sentiment behind the gesture is welcome, and the press of the Captain’s side against his more so. That sensation — that’s a memory he’ll be revisiting.

The thing Haddock will remember most about that conversation is how badly he wanted, the whole time, to bat away all the words between them and just crush Tintin to his chest with everything he had. Just… just to hold, and not let go, until the wee idiot gave up and let himself be consoled already.

It’s a foolish daydream, to think a hug could banish years’ worth of accumulated, still-unspoken terrors. Even a hug of Haddock quality.

He would’ve liked the opportunity to try anyhow.

(The thing Snowy will remember most about that night is that when the sky itself attacked them, his clumsy best friend (and _his_ even clumsier friend) saved them all once more. 

And that, when the cat got up and things got too lonely in the bedroom for sleeping, he found them both together in the kitchen, barefoot and warm, talking softly and sometimes laughing even more so, and they gave him bits of cheese.)

**Author's Note:**

> Additional warnings:
> 
> accidental injury/trauma of an animal, very brief mention of death of a wild animal, recovering alcoholism, and a graphic nightmare sequence that includes (mostly brief) instances of:  
> gore/body horror, human trafficking, emetophobia, arachnophobia, musophobia, implications of sexual assault


End file.
